After sitting and practicing mindfulness, and focusing on simply resting with the breath, I contemplated the Screen Memory image from last week. My friend loved flowers, especially tulips in the spring…pinks, purples, blues and reds. Recalling favorite moments brings forward my warmth and caring for her.

She was the one who always had my back no matter what. For thirty years we have shared our heart secrets, worked out together, and played together. A week of theater and art galleries in London. Watching the Perseid showers on the gulf islands. Protesting and walking for peace. Planning and facilitating workshops for survivors, their families and professionals. Photographing each other. Trusting her with my son, and with my family. Dinners and holidays and endless cups of tea.

As As I choose colors and begin to paint, I realize again that she never got to retire in her own manner. She simply had to let go. I remember I nominated her for a woman of the year award. Now she can not remember her work at all. The loss I feel at losing the rich complexity of our friendship is but an echo of her losses. Her social activism has dropped away to reveal the underground stream of openness and warmth that fed her political vision and her belief. She seems to be gone, though her spirit is still alive. Poignant and penetrating, memories rise and fall during the art making. There is a physical release as I honor us, and an acknowledgement of the changes. Tears and gratitude co-mingle. The direct contact with the paints and paper moves me closer to sadness. While my friend is still alive, our mutual loss is deep. The confusion I feel when I am with her has melted. I know her and love her both for who she was and who she is now. The watercolors are both soft and nurturing, and they express the joy of being.The exploration continues next week.

MBAT: Transforming Grief part 1: Screen MemoryFirst in a series of six posts exploring grief through Mindfulness Based Art

Chogyam Trungpa taught us to look directly at what is, to reach for our inherent sanity, thereby releasing the power of compassion through our expressive minds. We can heal pain with love, clarity, and the strength of our human hearts. And we can keep on walking and talking.

In the MBAT journey of transformation you apply your Mindfulness Art practices to any situation that confronts you. By intentionally carrying awareness into your creative expression you touch your heart and are able to connect with its strength, an ever present and deep power.

Many friends and family are facing illnesses that are debilitating and sometimes life-threatening. Grief and death have become more apparent in our daily worlds. Most of us know someone who is confronting cancer, Alzheimer’s, or a similarly challenging disease. Sometimes these experiences are hard to put into words. Mindfulness Based Art provides a way to express and explore these difficult feelings. In Mindfulness experience, states of being arise that infuse freedom, joy or beauty into difficult, painful realities. MBAT may offer insights that surprise us.

For the next 6 weeks I will share with you a journey into the world of grief and beauty, sadness and joy, life and loss.

Our journey begins with a memory of a deeply loved friend. Her Alzheimer’s has constricted her social world and severely limited her relationships. Wheel chair bound, in a care facility in a large city, she is still able to recognize long-time friends and her close family. On a good day, being in her presence is like being flooded with sunshine. She is warm, loving, and socially gracious. She will laugh at your jokes. The staff love her. Her powerful heart essence cuts through medications and penetrates the hearts of those who sit with her.

Having been deeply touched and feeling the rawness of my open heart, I painted SCREEN MEMORY after one such visit. The painting expresses a memory of being with her in an earlier time when she could hike, discuss, dance and teach.

It is a screen that covers and links to a chain of memories, all of which touch the love being expressed and touch my missing of the friendship as it was. The beauty and fun and tenderness of the friendship are here.